Wagner James Au reports on virtual worlds & VR

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Steam's nascent paid mod system has been scrapped (at least for the time being) in a shockingly quick reversal after its launch late last week. Naturally the Skyrim community, the test group for the system's initial roll-out, has been celebrating enthusiastically and oh wait, I'm lying. People are still very upset, myself included.

I'm actually more disappointed than I am upset, for two very specific reasons.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Today Bethesda posted a weak defense of its highly controversial (and much discussed) new policy to sell user-made Skyrim mods, which the company then hastily reversed in an update to the same post. Even with the reversal, however, the whole ridiculous imbroglio sets a horrible precedent for user-made content in open world games from major publishers, because this single line from the company is now part of that precedent. It is so misguided, so ignorant, so greedy in the short term at the expense of long-term benefit, it needs to be laid out and shot full of arrows to the knee.

It came out in regard to Bethesda and Valve taking 75% of user-made mod sales to the mod developer's pitiful 25% cut:

The percentage conversation is about assigning value in a business relationship. How do we value an open IP license? The active player base and built in audience? The extra years making the game open and developing tools? The original game that gets modded? Even now, at 25% and early sales data, we’re looking at some modders making more money than the studio members whose content is being edited.

Emphasis mine, because the utter WTF-nesss of this line bears emphasis. Because it suggests that Bethesda looked at its sales data, noticed the runaway financial success of its most talented, dedicated grassroots developer fans... and decided that was a bad thing.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Yesterday Steam announced a brand new system that will allow modders to sell their content on the Steam Workshop, starting with one of the most actively modded games out there, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Since that initial announcement people have been, to be perfectly frank, losing their shit. They've been losing their shit on the Steam forums, they've been losing their shit on Twitter, they've been losing their shit on Reddit... Phrases like "modding is dead", "this will kill mods" and "it's the beginning of the end for modding" are being bandied about even more frequently than they are when some ill-advised developer/publisher starts sending modders Cease and Desists -- and that's saying something. But this isn't the end of the world or the death of the scene, I promise. It's just a change, and like anything else it has its pros and cons.

As someone who ostensibly got her start writing about games by reviewing what amounts to paid, user-created mods, let me try to assuage some of the fears and concerns you may have about this new aspect of the Steam Workshop... And maybe plant a few new ones in their place.

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Last week after namedropping Jay Faircloth in an unrelated Second Life screenshot post, I was compelled to see what my favorite Skyrim modder had been up to since I browser their gallery last. Among a lot of the usual stunning shots of Faircloth's characters and game environments there was a connective thread composed of something a little more unexpected: Spriggans.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Every so often I like to check in on Jay Faircloth, my absolute favorite Skyrim screenshot artist -- and if you still hesitate to consider people who take game screenshots "artists" then you're clearly not familiar with his work. Faircloth, who also goes by Anaphiel in modding circles, is constantly tweaking his game to his own high standards (as he shared with NWN back in 2012) to the point that much of what he does is never released publicly. He retextures, remaps, remodels, and generally wrings every last drop of graphical potential out of the popular game.

Even so, several of his latest pictures (including the one shown above) are as much the result of a happy accident as they are his own modding prowess. As he explained on Flickr:

Thursday, July 10, 2014

We're long overdue for another chat about Skywind, the ridicilously ambitious modding project that aims to import the entire world of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind into the series' most recent (single-player) incarnation,Skyrim.

The Skywind team have begun releasing trailers for their massive project monthly, teasing everything from armor models to environments (like the Ashlands) and even the soundtrack. Unfortunately due to the scale of the mod it's hard to say when (of if) we'll ever be able to get our hands on it, but either way these haunting trailers provide a glimpse into a more updated version of a world that so many gamers hold dear.

Friday, May 30, 2014

If you're a fan of open-world games, sometimes it feels hard to articulate what makes you click with one game's world while another leaves you completely cold. There are a lot of intangible qualities that factor into how immersive that world is.

At least they seemed intangible to me, before I saw Danny O'Dwyer's latest video in Gamespot's ongoing game analysis series The Point. In it, he does an excellent job of solidifying so many of those little je ne sais quoi points many of us have struggled to put into words, in this case specifically about why the world presented in Ubisoft's Watch Dogs just isn't up to snuff. It turns out that a lot of what makes an open world feel truly open (and for that matter, interesting) is in the presentation. Watch the full video on Gamespot here.

Friday, April 04, 2014

The very first thing that I will tell you about my time with The Elder Scrolls Online is how much I absolutely hated it during the beta. Playing it was like a chore -- gaming housework I had to do -- and I just wasn't having fun, full stop. The second thing I will tell you is that at some point, that changed. Since Head-Start access opened last week, I've spent every day eagerly anticipating the moment when my work is done and I'm free to play more. It's hard to pin down exactly why I've done a complete 180, but I think it has something to do with adjusting my expectations.

Writing about an MMO of this scope and scale at launch is difficult, so I will be breaking my coverage up. Progress in ESO feels slower than most MMOs I've played recently (Full disclosure, I'm playing ESO with a review code provided by the developer on request) and after a week of playing for about 2-5 hours a night on my main character I've only just hit level 10. So this week I'm going to be focussing on first impressions, and addressing the question that's on everyone's lips: How good an Elder Scrolls game is The Elder Scrolls Online?

Just imagine if World of Warcraft 2 came out and did the same thing with Night Elves.

Given the shakey nature of many contemporary big-budget MMORPGs (and the fact that ESO is already in a precarious position due to the M rating it received from the ESRB,) irritating the fanbase with something this brazen doesn't seem smart. It wasn't even remotely necessary, either. Here's why:

Friday, January 17, 2014

If your curiosity was piqued by my last post about Skywind, the fan-made mod that's merging classic RPG Morrowind into the world of Skyrim, there's a new 10 minute long video from the team that's well worth your time. In it the full breadth of the project is explained, and unsurprisingly it's pretty damn impressive.

It turns out that more than 70 people are currently working on this massive mod, from voice actors to artists to coders. Because of the age (and relative low quality) of the resources in the original game as well as the limited Morrowind-style content available in Skyrim already through its official expansions, a vast majority of content like weapons, armor, enemies, and creatures need to be remade from scratch. Even landscapes and environments require significant work, since they diverge so heavily from the snowy slopes and grassy plains native to Skyrim itself.

You can keep abreast of this mod's development (and find out how to contribute your own skills) on the project's site.